M33

With the wider Imperium swelling to a peak of power and influence, the Jericho Sector is but one of many that bloom into a renaissance of power and achievement as scores of Imperial worlds of every type are raised up from the rubble of past failures and the un-trodden soil of alien worlds in Mankind’s name. The Jericho Sector becomes both a bastion and exemplar of Imperial civilisation and majesty carved from the cold wilderness of space with a burgeoning population that quickly soars into the hundreds of billions. The Jericho Sector is a hub of Imperial commerce and industry with its bloody past all but forgotten, a realm of piety and devotion whose renown is such that it is spoken of on Terra as a gem of Humanity’s domains. Its goods are sought after as far afield as blessed Ultramar and distant Espandor. With the passage of millennia the power and fortunes of the Imperium wax and wane, but the Jericho Sector manages to remain strong and prosperous despite the vicissitudes of war, invasion, and petty disaster. However, the dawning of the 35th Millennium heralds both a darkening of the sector’s fate and the coming of the Deathwatch into the known histories of the Jericho Reach.

ca. Unknown Date.M33

The Apocrypha of Davio

The Apocrypha of Davio was a great and holy document that was created in the 33rd Millennium in an attempt to list all of the Space MarineChapters of the Second Founding. It is unknown how many Successor Chapters were created -- some Second Founding Chapters in the past 10,000 years have been destroyed (such as the Dark Angels' Successor Chapter, the Lions Sable), leaving no records of their histories in the often incomplete Imperial archives of the Adeptus Administratum, while some have gone Renegade and been declared Excommunicate Traitoris (such as the Soul Drinkers). Other Second Founding Chapters have been lost in more recent times and their names in the records of the fallen heroes of the Imperium are all that remain of them. Some survive to this day, the proud inheritors of their Legions' histories and the traditions of their Primarch. Therefore, the Apocrypha of Davio remains woefully incomplete.

Whilst mining the Feral World of Aggaros, the Adeptus Mechanicus engage in what at first seems like an embarrassingly one-sided battle -- that is until the primitives bring their flame-tongued shamans into the fray. The armies of the Adeptus Mechanicus find themselves burnt from the inside or crushed flat by invisible forces. The retreating Tech-Priests call in an old debt from the RelictorsChapter in order to renew the attack. Four days later, the Relictors' 3rd Company fights its way through psychic pyrotechnics of bewildering force to reach the hidden city of the primitive tribes. Lining every road are dust-caked statues of the Thousand Sons, each facing a colossal effigy of Ahriman atop a pyramid of obsidian. Captain Excorius orders the statue of Ahriman tom down. As it topples, every one of the Thousand Sons comes to life, shrugging off the dust of centuries and opening fire on the Relictors with a hail of coruscating bolts. Not one of the Adeptus Mechanicus, nor their Relictors allies, survive.

118-418.M33

The Sorrowful Pursuit

Chapter Master Khardin Gol of the Black Wings Chapter and numerous Lords of the Imperium were brutally murdered during the infamous Hour of Shadow, which plunged the world of Lorin Alpha into riot and madness. In the aftermath, the Black Wings Chapter pursued the Chaos renegades known as the Tenebrae into the Veiled Region beyond the edge of Imperial space seeking revenge. Three centuries later, a single damaged Strike Cruiser returned from the outer void bearing a handful of survivors. They would speak of what they had endured to none save the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition. The Chapter was slowly rebuilt to full strength from its reserve stocks of gene-seed over the next several decades and swore an eternal oath of vendetta against the Tenebrae and its nightmarish works.

The Ultramarines Successor Chapter, the Howling Griffons are created during an unnamed Founding.

265-285.M33

The Last Voyage of Admiral Usurs

Admiral Usurs is cast down by the High Lords of Terra. He is too powerful to execute without inviting civil war, so is instead despatched on an explorator mission to the intergalactic gulf beyond. For the following decade, Usurs' reports reach Terra, detailing the conquering of new systems for the glory of the Emperor. After two decades, the communiqués cease. Contact is never made with the systems mentioned in Usurs' reports.

313.M33

Siege of Eternity's Gate

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340.M33

Mother Gullet

A Callidus Assassin, sent to steal away the firstborn child of the dangerously self-centred Planetary Governor Thygmus van Spracht, disguises herself as the infant’s matron-vigilus. By widening her craw with Polymorphine and swallowing the princeling whole, she walks past the elite Palace Guards without so much as a whisper of resistance. She carries the prize in her belly to her masters before regurgitating it whole, mewling but safe. Pict-skull footage is sent to the governor, and he falls back into the Imperial fold within the week.

344-346.M33

The Blackstar Liberation

Warpstorm Korinthus finally abates, revealing the vast Blackstar System firmly in the grip of Chaos. More than half of the Blood AngelsChapter deploys to liberate the Imperial citizens of these worlds. The war that follows lasts two full years and pits the Blood Angels against a lethal coalition of Night Lords, Death Guard and Word Bearers. Eventually, the Blood Angels best their foes amid the nuclear fires of the battle of Neverwish, driving them back to the Warp in tatters. The cost is great, but the Sons of Sanguinius recover a huge and populous system for the Imperium.

454.M33

Greed Inherent

The Rogue Trader Apollyon Maestrich-Nova finds a distant moon that holds fantastic natural wealth. Apollyon sets up a mining operation from within his own fleet. Glaciers of glowing fire-diamonds are carved from the rocks and precious elements are sold to the nearby Reubic System. Apollyon becomes rich enough to purchase a second voidfleet, and then a third. Within a decade, the entire Reubic System has become insanely wealthy. Apollyon, thoroughly corrupted by the power he has amassed, turns to the embrace of Slaanesh. Only when his tainted coin has circulated throughout every planet of the Reubic System does his grand design become clear. As Apollyon's moon eclipses the capital world of Reubia's sun, all those who have shared in his greed are suddenly filled with an insatiable, cannibalistic hunger, leaving those who succumb to it open to daemonic possession. An astropathic cry for aid reaches the Imperium and the Grey Knights arrive in strength to save Reubia itself from the armies of the once-human invaders. The rest of the star system falls to anarchy, however, as Slaanesh claims his due.

560.M33

Second Mortis Gate Campaign

Almost the entire Dark AngelsChapter takes to the field, and it is recorded that all three of the Sacred Standards of the Chapter flew above the scene of that great triumph.

615.M33

The Blade of Infinity

The pre-Heresy cruiser, Blade of Infinity emerges from the Warp, its re-entry signature suggesting that it had left realspace over twenty thousand years previously. This predates the Warp-drive's invention during the Age of Technology and suggests radical time stream disorders. Transmissions picked up suggest the Blade of Infinity is trying to communicate some type of warning, but before much can be deciphered, it once again disappears into the Warp. In its wake comes an invasion fleet of Chaos Space Marine Legions, fell foes that wreak much havoc. The ship Blade of Infinity re-emerges several more times in subsequent years, always as a harbinger of further Warp incursions.

732-822.M33

Red Stars Campaign

In a series of wars, the mineral-rich Kulgotha System is scoured of xenos and claimed by the Imperium of Man. The Dark Angels take part in many of these battles, including deploying in full Chapter strength at the climactic Battle of Vermilac Prime.

During the War of the False Primarch (780-860.M33), a dark and bloody episode of the Imperium's history, now largely lost to myth and purged from the record, which plunged the Segmentum Pacificus into anarchy, the Pentarchy of Blood was convened by the High Lords of Terra to enact their judgement. Five Chapters, the Red Talons, the Death Eagles, the Carcharodons, the Flesh Eaters and the Charnel Guard are used to systematically destroy eleven Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes judged Traitoris Perdita and lay waste to their home worlds, finally drawing the eight decade conflict to a close.

870.M33

The Hellion War

In the wake of the anarchy that followed the murderous internecine conflict of the War of the False Primarch and its aftermath, the Hellion Sector declares its secession from the troubled Imperium. Bloodily attacking its neighbours, it becomes quickly apparent that the sector's rulers had fallen then to the worship of Chaos, and its millions of men-under-arms were corrupted and given over to darkness, while its mass manufactora were turned to churning forth twisted war machines consecrated to the dark gods. The ever widening war swells to ravage more than eighty inhabited systems and uncounted billions die in the fighting. By the dawning of M35, the Hellion Sector and its environs are reduced to little more than a waste zone of barren worlds and dead hive cities.

882.M33

The First True War of Veonid

A daemonic legion of the Blood God Khorne is attracted to the thunder of guns on the Imperial weapons-testing world of Veonid. Their invasion soon ensures that the prototype guns are used in earnest.

953.M33

The Siege of Lakadamon

The Sons of Guilliman Chapter, alongside several Tekarn armoured regiments are besieged in the defence of the Hive World of Lakadamon by the hordes of the OrkWarboss Vorhgad Bloodfang. Despite vastly overwhelming odds, the Chapter successfully holds the planet's defence for three years until the siege is broken by the combined forces of the Night Reapers and War Bearers Chapters, fighting alongside a major taskforce from Battlefleet Tempestus to break the orbital blockade that encircles the beleaguered world.

997.M33

Saviour of Praxis

The Angels of Redemption find sedition upon one of their own recruiting worlds. Cypher, under the guise of the Saviour of Praxus, has been manipulating recruiting practices, hand-selecting and training the feral warriors to increase their chances of being chosen. He escapes before he can be apprehended.

Late.M33

First War of Faith

As the 33rd millennium drew to a close, the only major religious orthodoxy standing against the Ministorum was the so-called Confederation of Light, a penitent faith founded upon the world of Dimmamar far to the galactic north in one of the few regions still to fully accept the rule of the new religion. Eventually, the Ministorum determined that so great a threat was the Confederation of Light to its spiritual authority that only violent action would see the matter resolved. The Ecclesiarch declared the Confederation a heretical body, and the first War of Faith was launched. Vast armies of the Imperial Guard and the huge fleets of the Imperial Navy were mobilised in a great outpouring of righteous zeal. In addition to these regular forces, countless numbers of common, untrained, barely equipped followers rallied to the cause, embarking upon indentured bulk carriers and hurling themselves against the confederation's worlds. The slaughter that ensued was absolute, for the so-called heretics were hugely outnumbered and completely outgunned. All but a handful of the heretics are slain, and the remainder flee into the ruins of their homeworld of Dimmamar. As the ashes of Dimmamar cooled, the Adeptus Ministorum's grip upon the soul of mankind was total.

ca. Late M33

The Administratum Ascendant

The Administratum regains much of its lost influence to the Ecclesiarchy, but only at the expense of the governance of the Imperium at large.